


Yearning

by smolder



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolder/pseuds/smolder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"…he just doesn’t really know. Sure, she told him that she had been in a mental institution. But she had been super flip about it. She hadn’t let on in the least how hard it had been – how they had done everything in their power to make her burning single-minded belief that her brother was still alive waver."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yearning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crysgen78](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crysgen78/gifts).



> Disclaimer: Warehouse 13 belongs to Jack Kenny and David Simkins.  
> A/N: Episode Tag – “The 40th Floor”

The second she gets back to the B&B she goes straight to her room. She passes a wide-eyed Leena who looks from her to Pete with concern – and Claudia feels a twinge of guilt amidst all the other mess going on in her head for not Farnsworth-ing ahead and giving the other woman a heads-up on the emotional shit-storm that was coming down on their always lovely (and utterly insane) Univille home.

 

She can’t imagine how truly suck-tastic it must be to be an empath most of the time.

 

But seriously, she can’t deal with that right now. Can’t deal with anything. Because she should probably be comforting Pete over the bombshell about his mother spontaneously appearing and being all Regent-ified; but she is still floored, absolutely crushed, about Jinksy (and anyway, he has Myka to lean on – and she is supporting him like a big sister. _Big sister_ …)

 

“Fuck,” she breathes out when she finally gets to her destination, closing her bedroom door and leaning against it. Claudia closes her eyes as well and drops her bag but doesn’t move from where she is. Honestly, she just doesn’t feel like it right now.

 

And it’s not truly Jinksy’s fault. She can’t blame him. He can’t know how much it means to her – not really. He wouldn’t have done this then. Not in this way anyway. Steve isn’t the type of guy to have sat down with and explained to a gal how much she was like his super awesome big sister who had been killed by a stray bullet, and then just _leave_ when things got complicated.

 

(Because sure he pulled a gun on Ms.Fredricks. And sure there were probably _reasons_ for that, things that lead up to it - Ms. Fredricks can get _super_ intense – but that isn’t any reason to _leave_. He can’t _really_ be fired. Not really. They have crazy things happen all the time at Warehouse 13, it still could have worked.)

 

…he just doesn’t really know. Sure, she told him that she had been in a mental institution. But she had been super flip about it. She hadn’t let on in the least how hard it had been – how they had done everything in their power to make her burning single-minded belief that her brother was still alive waver.

 

(And he doesn’t know – will never know if she can help it - how close they got. In those moments when drugs make things hazy and reality starts to bend. You can’t always trust your mind, so how can you trust yourself? Trust that memory?)

 

Her _big_ brother ( _like his big sister. And fuck fuck fuck – she had had to call her brother after Jinky had told her his story that day. Just to make sure, to make certain Joshua was still alive. It is still difficult for her not to give into panic sometimes. That yes, he is alive and that day didn’t just end with her dead on the floor and Artie adding another person to the heap load of guilt he already carries._ ) who she had looked up to and adored.

 

So, he wouldn’t have said those things to her if he knew how tightly she would latch onto them, how deeply they would burrow into her heart, into her brain…..if he had any idea that he wouldn’t be staying with them.

 

But he shouldn’t have.

 

He shouldn’t have _ever_ implied he wanted to be part of her family if he didn’t mean it.

 

Claudia snorts in a harsh, unlady like manner and breathes in quick hiccupping breaths. She runs her fingers through her hair – staving off more tears. Listening to the way her jacket catches against it (the click of the studs hitting against wood) she slides down the door until she hits the floor, then she crosses her legs and starts picking at a loose thread on her jeans angrily.

 

Fuck him anyway. She has Joshua. And Artie, Pete, Myka, and Leena….but shit….

 

She beats her head back against the door before abruptly stopping  and biting her lip – listening wide-eyed for a prolonged tense moment for any approaching footsteps. The last thing she wants right now is for Myka to mother her. Or Pete to try and cheer her up.

 

She’s wallowing right now. She knows it. But Claudia feels she’s entitled to it for a while at least because she lost a partner here. Sure, Jinksy hadn’t been a part of the Warehouse as long as Myka had when she left (and Pete just shut _down_ ) but he _had_ been her partner none the less.

 

And…and she had been hoping – hell, she really really had been hoping to get something like Pete and Myka had with Jinksy someday.

 

Where they know each other – their quirks, their likes and dislikes, their strengths and their weaknesses. Where they just share a certain look and then they’re smiling no matter what mood either one was previously in. Where the trust is so deep that they will throw their lives in each others’ hands without a thought over and over again.

 

(…..where on the drive back - looking so lost in the back seat - Pete sat squished right next to Myka, holding her hand, and with his head on her shoulder, face buried in her hair. And Myka patiently let him, keeping up a constant murmur to him – much too low for her to hear from where she was using the rear view mirror to watch them longingly from the front seat. Feeling so much like a voyeur. )

 

Jinksy and her, they might have been getting there. It sure felt like it to her. They seemed to work well together in the field too…..

 

But he had said his decision wasn’t about her. And Claudia tries to remember that. Seriously, she does.  She really really does. But….

 

How can she _not_ take this personally?

 

She misses him. It’s as simple as that Claudia realizes suddenly. She misses him and she desperately wants there to be a simple reason he is gone. A simple thing she can fix.

 

Bag it and tag it. The process was rarely simple but at the end of the day you had an artifact on the shelf.

 

Ta da.

 

Conclusion.

 

Here, here the conclusion seems to be her sitting on the floor crying in her room over something she had _absolutely no control over_.

 

And that makes sense intellectually. Claudia can tell herself that until the cows come home or until repetition renders it meaningless. But that doesn’t ‘t mean she can make herself not _feel_ these things.

 

Not _wish_ her family was one person larger.

 

Not long, so much it hurts sometimes, for the loose easy synchronistic partnership of Myka and Pete. All friendship, trust, and the genuine perpetual love of siblings.

 

 _Fuck, Jinksy…._

 

Claudia hugs her knees up to her chest and just breaths deeply until her crying has calmed.

 

Afterwards, she still feels the same way.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Not exactly what was asked for, and I do apologize for that. But, in my feeble defense, this was a “Pinch Hit” and I am way behind on “Warehouse 13” – the last episode I saw being “The 40th Floor” – so I worked with what I knew. *laughs* Hope you still like it. And have a Happy Yuletide!


End file.
